All I know is that at age 14 I was still working on mastering the intricacies of tying my shoes. At 14, I wasn't quite there yet, but I was close.

Tianlang Guan at 14?

He's playing in the Masters. Made the cut. Thirty-two other golfers didn't make the cut. All of them are older than Tianlang Guan. Most of them way older. Like Ben Crenshaw. He's 61. He didn't make the cut.

Tianlang Guan did. He's 14.

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Phil Mickelson has 5-irons older than Tianlang Guan. Tiger Woods has phone numbers older than Guan, if you get my drift.

Who does anything significant in life at age 14?

I didn't even start walking erect until I was 12. At 14, this kid is playing in the Masters.

How can this be? For starters, the tournament's name is the "Masters." I presume that's meant to mean that all the competitors are looked upon as the masters of their sport. When you are considered the master of anything, you usually have some gray hair, maybe smoke a pipe, shuffle from room to room wearing your slippers, maybe even drool a little.

People who are masters of anything tend to have some mileage on them. Tianlang Guan is younger than the Internet.

He's younger than all the caddies at the Masters, younger than many of the caddies' children, younger than the sand traps at Augusta, younger even than the phrase "GET IN THE HOLE!"

At age 14, nobody should be this good at whatever it is they do. Of course, this issue never really comes up much because if you're only 14 you probably don't do much of anything.

Maybe mow the lawn. Take out the garbage. Be quiet.

Nothing that's really, you know, quantifiable.

Then we have Guan, who at age 14 is blasting 250-yard drives, sinking long putts, wearing cool clothes, hanging out with famous golfers and experiencing a tradition like no other.

When I was 14, I was hanging out at McDonald's.

At the same age Guan is signing his scorecard at Augusta National, I was asking my buddy, "Are you gonna eat that?"

This is what's great about sports. If you're good enough and smart enough, doggone it, people will like you! It doesn't matter how old or how young you are. Where else but in golf can you compete with the greatest athletes in the sport?

OK, maybe in figure skating, but where else besides that?

Gymnastics? Um, OK. I guess so. And swimming and diving, I suppose, but that's about it.

The point is, sports will make room for the prodigy.

Unless it's the NBA, where even if you're good enough to go straight from high school to the pros, you can't. First you have to pretend like you're a college student for a year before they will let you play in the NBA.

With the exception of the NBA, the world of sports embraces and celebrates the preposterously precocious. Mike Trout almost won the Most Valuable Player Award last year at age 20. Bryce Harper hit 22 home runs at age 19 -- which makes him five years older than Tianlang Guan.

You don't get this in other lines of work.

Do you know any 14-year-old nuclear physicists? Has any U.S. president ever had a teenager in his cabinet?

In Wyoming, they won't even let you become a cowboy until you're 21.

It's hard to be really good at anything when you're really young. But that's probably a good thing. Think about it. Tianlang Guan is playing in the Masters at 14. Where do you go from there?

That's been the rationalization for all my own pre-and-post age-14 failures. So for all of you out there who are 14 years old, or even older than that, and can't figure out why you aren't playing in the Masters like Tianlang Guan, remember this: There is virtue in patience. Just keep telling yourself that, especially because you've apparently got a lot of time on your hands.

Also, never forget the immortal words of Wally Chesterfield, who first coined the phrase: "I don't want to peak too soon."

You've never heard of Wally Chesterfield?

Mission accomplished!

-- Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin has been suspended for eight games for charging the mound Thursday after Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke hit him with a pitch.

No word on whether Quentin will appeal the suspension by saying, "I didn't mean to charge the mound, but I slipped."

-- As the Cavs' season winds down, speculation heats up on the future of Coach Byron Scott. Should he be fired? Only if Cavs officials can honestly look at the team's record and say: "You know, with the right coach, this team probably would have only lost 54 games."

-- In a feat of remarkable physical endurance, Carmelo Anthony, hoping to end Kevin Durant's three-year reign as the NBA's scoring champion, has taken 227 shots in seven games in April.

Anthony is averaging 32 field goal attempts per game this month.

In four of the seven games, he's taken 35 or more shots. His high water mark was 38. If you count foul shots, the indefatigable Anthony this month has hoisted the orange rimward a whopping 276 times.

Has an NBA player ever had Tommy John surgery?

-- According to USA Today, when an NFL team asked former LSU cornerback Tyrann Mathieu how many drug tests he failed in college, Mathieu answered, "I quit counting at 10. I really don't know."

That's also the stock answer NFL scouts give their teams when asked the question "How many passes did the Browns' receivers drop in the game?"

Weak of the week

In the pantheon of excuses pitchers can give for hitting a batter with a pitch "I slipped" is one of the least convincing, especially if this isn't the first time a pitcher threw at the next hitter after giving up a home run.

It might have been more believable the first time. The second time? No chance. Sorry, Carlos Carrasco.